How to Change Your IP Location to a Different Country – Anonymous Internet Surfer

Need to be in a Different Country -Change Your IP Address Location and Stay Anonymous Online

Your IP address is the unique network number which is essential if you want to use the internet. However this address is also used to filter, modify or even block access to various resources online. Many people think that it’s impossible to change this address but that’s not quite the case.

Reasons to change your IP address

Your IP address is a unique number assigned for every device and tells quite a bit about the person online. Indeed IP addresses can track someone online to determine their ISP, geography, and more. Each device which is connected to the internet potentially has its own unique IP address, so no one is the same. Many people won’t really see any point to changing their IP addresses even if it was simple, however there are some VERY good reasons to do this depending on your location/circumstances.

Change Your IP Location to a Different Country

Here’s some of the main reasons that people need to change their IPs.

Browse websites anonymously

Changing your IP address won’t keep you completely anonymous online, but it’s a good start. Whenever you visit any website or online resource your IP address is analysed and tracked for a variety of reasons. Firstly it’s used to identify your location and then it’s used as a unique identifier for how you use the site. Your IP address is effectively your unique digital ID, so it’s the main metric used to track and monitor your activities.

Limit search engines from tracking you

Well, it’s not just search engines, virtually every site will use your IP address to track you. Does this matter? Well it does for those of us who value our privacy and don’t really trust ‘big business’ without our data. The primary driver is usually profit, at least within democratic nations. Being tracked has more sinister implications if you live in some countries or states though !

Bypass content geo-restrictions

This is the big one for many people who are not worried about privacy online. What they hate is that they get blocked or filtered from some of the world’s best entertainment sites simply because of their location. Not only blocked often you’ll get charged differently too, sites like Steam charge vastly different prices based on your location. This is simple profit maximisation, charging the highest price you can based on the location.

It’s basically trying to integrate all the price restrictions of the physical world into the online space. Businesses simply don’t like you shopping around online and ordering cheaper goods across geographic borders as it reduces their profit. Geo-restrictions block and filter you based on your physical location determined by your IP address.

Evade government tracking

Now if you live somewhere relatively democratic and safe then this might not be an issue, but unfortunately for many people it’s a very real fear. Some countries like China and Iran are known for their extremely strict citizens’ tracking, whereas USA is known for NSA. Plenty of European Governments are known to use extensive tracking and monitoring online. It’s all done in the name of catching criminals and terrorists although where that line is drawn can sometimes be difficult to determine. Certainly it would be no real surprise to learn that almost every country spies on it’s citizens to some extent, even the ‘trustworthy’ ones !

In order to evade government tracking, anonymous internet users can change their IP location. This is done by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) as well as other tools such as Tor Browser. In this way, they will be able to hide from the authorities and prevent them from being watched or censored in any way that may have been imposed on them before. We’ll explain this in further detail later in this article.

Prevent your ISP from tracking you

Now you might think your ISP (internet service provider) has no real interest in tracking your activities online and in some ways this is largely true. However the problem is that your ISP is in a unique situation to monitor and track pretty much everything you do online.

Absolutely everything you do online can be seen at your ISP. Every file you download, every message you send, every website you visit even every video you watch. Everything flows through your ISP and is recorded against your account. Therefore this is the obvious place to come if you want to see everything someone does online. You have no privacy whatsoever !

What’s more the laws that protect your information are often very vague and frequently either sidestepped or just completely ignored. Any state or government agency who wants to access this information will normally find a way to get it. All they have to do is usually pretend you’re suspected of something illegal and it’s open access to your data !

Change IP location to a different country

So how do you take back a little bit of control over these aspects in particular the geo-targeting measures which seem to get more restrictive every year? Well most of the websites determine your location by using your IP address. It can be used quite easily to determine where you are connecting from.

If you want to hide or change your location then you really need to be able to change your IP address.

How to Change your IP address

Unfortunately this is not easy to do. You might look online and see lots of tutorials and think that this is quite simple but it isn’t. This is because you effectively have two sorts of IP addresses – one which is simple to change and the other which isn’t. The simple one is your ‘internal’ or ‘private’ IP address which you can modify quite easily. The important one which is used to determine your location is known as the ‘public’ IP address and this is much harder to change.

Private IP Address

All your home devices will have a private IP address. It’s normally used to connect to your Wifi or Internet gateway. In fact it’s usually assigned by your Wifi access point. This IP address is not visible online and is only used to connect on your internal network. Changing it will have no effect on your public facing address although you may break your internet access !

Public IP Address

This address is normally assigned by your internet service provider normally directly to your broadband router or modem if you’re at home. This is the unique address that other people can see online. It will be shared by all your devices through that specific internet connection e.g. your phone, tablet or laptop etc will all have this IP address online.

All the references online about changing your IP address refer to the private one. There’s no real point doing this unless you’re doing something within your own private network. It has no impact on your online experience at all other than allowing you to communicate with your access point.

How to Change IP country

So we’ve explained that there are many different reasons that you may want to change your IP location. One example is if you do not live in the same country as the content provider, but still wish to access their website. There are also geographical restrictions on sites such as Netflix or Hulu which require an American IP address to access content.

To change your IP Address, simply use a VPN (virtual private network) service like NordVPN and sign up for one of their paid plans (from about $4/month). Once set up, you will have to change your IP address from the current location to a location in the country of your choice.

Hide Not Change Your IP Address

It’s not really possible to change your public IP address unless you have access to your own ISP or datacenter. However you can use a VPN to do the next best thing – hide your real IP address and use another one instead.

By connecting to an intermediate VPN server you can remain completely anonymous and hide your real location. Every website you visit will only see the IP address of the VPN server. It is that will determine where they think you are.

So if you want to access something restricted to US IP addresses then you just connect to US based VPN server. Want to watch the BBC iPlayer then change to a UK based VPN server. Your real IP address won’t change but it will be hidden by the VPN server.  Want to learn some French before visiting Paris, simple try a French IP and watch the French TV stations online like M6 Play.

It’s like having a fake ID which you show to all the websites you visit. In fact it’s like having a box full of fake IDs in lots of different countries to use whenever you want.

Best VPN for Changing Your IP Country Location

The great thing about the latest VPN services is that the good ones include servers in loads of different countries. For example my favorite VPN currently which I use for watching the BBC outside the United Kingdom has 59 different countries.

best vpn for location changing

Which means that I can bypass geo-targeting blocks in every single one of those countries. By just clicking on the matching country then I can avoid all the geographic restrictions that my normal IP address inflicts upon me !

Most of the largest VPN providers supply lots of different countries all included in their standard subscription. Although if you’re looking for a specific country then it’s worth checking before you subscribe especially if it’s a smaller country you need access to.

Check Specific VPN Country

If you just want to access a few sites then having 60 countries covered might not be necessary. Indeed sometimes it’s more important to ensure that the servers you need work well for whichever site you require.

Unfortunately many sites have started blocking access to some VPN services in order to stop people bypassing their geo-blocks. Although they can’t directly detect a VPN they can make a ‘guess’ if too many people are sharing the same IP address.

Many VPNs for example no longer work with BBC iPlayer, some are useless for changing your Netflix region. It’s important to ensure that the VPN you choose will work with the sites you want access to. A server in Costa Rica is not that important to me compared with watching Match of the Day on BBC One for sure !!

Top-rated VPN service

Our top rated VPN service in 2021 is NordVPN. There are some other really strong contenders however for price, features and servers then Nord is pretty hard to beat. It also works great for the majority of UK services like BBC iPlayer

FAQ

Why would I want to change location of my ip address?

All sorts of reasons, but primarily to bypass geo-targeting blocks on websites. So if you’re blocked from a channel because of your physical location just change your IP address to match the right country,

Why is my vpn not changing my location?

Perhaps you’re not connected properly or the VPN is in the same country as you are in. Make sure the VPN server is located in the country you require.

How to change ip address of a router?

You’d have to connect the router directly to the VPN server. Many routers.modems have this functionality – normally called Client VPN Mode. You’ll need the account name and password to authenticate.

How do I get a us ip address?

Just connect to a VPN server based in the USA.

How to change ip address of your smartphone?

Most decent VPNs will have VPN client software which you can install on your smartphone too.

How to change ip address to another country?

Connect to a VPN which is based in another country and your IP address will appear to be from there.

What’s the Software to change ip location ?

This probably refers to VPN client software which allows you to select a VPN server in different countries.

Change IP Location to a Different country android or OSx ?

Most of the top VPN services like NordVPN will have apps for Android and Apple phones.